Speaking Truth to Politics Since Right Now

Erick Erickson, head honcho of the Consistently Wrong But Not Always Crazy redstate.org, has a remarkable post up. He’s not the only person on the right to express such sentiments, of course, but he’s in the Minority of Volume. The Republican Party needs to make some serious effort to chase the crazies out of their midst. This kind of piece is a step in that direction, but it’s going to be a long haul with the Conservitainment industry raking in profits by stoking bugfuck conspiracy theories and keeping the toothless and stupid buying ammunition.

The biggest questions post-election are how the Democrats will react to success and how the Republicans will react to failure. So far, the evidence points toward Democrats (Alan Grayson excepted) being willing to work toward middle-ground solutions and Republicans retrenching and pointing fingers. The one place in which some Republicans have re-connected with reality is in their demographic issue with Latinos.

This represents a real problem for Republicans. At the moment Latinos, 10% of the electorate and rising, overwhelmingly — by a margin of over 40 points — vote against them in elections. They have reason for this; Republicans are the party of Jan Brewer and Tom Tancredo and Joe Arpaio, of “amnesty” and of hamstringing George W. Bush and John McCain’s noble attempt to find a solution to the so-called problem.

I say “so-called” because “immigration” isn’t the real issue to Republicans; the real issue is “Mexicans.” But Mexicans have been leaving in greater number than they have been coming in over the leats few years as economic condions equalize across our southern border. This process is nowhere near complete but it already has rendered the whole question nearly moot.

Personally, I see no reason why we should restrict immigration at all; most of our ancestors arrived on these shores when one could do so freely. But for Republicans facing a big chunk of the electorate with the fully-justified belief that the party is bigoted against them, the symbolic value of immigration reform is huge. The issue is going to be that any useful solution not involving mass deportations is going to be called “amnesty” by the Republican base, and any Republican that supports it faces potential primary challenges that have good chances of heaving them out of office.

This is the Party That Hate Built. The Party of David Duke and Jan Brewer and Sam Brownback. It’s on the road to becoming one with the Whigs in the dustbin of history. Maybe it can re-invent itself, by abandoning its decades-long loyalty to bigotry, but to do so it would have to cast aside a big chunk of its base, which would them migrate to various white nationalist parties.

So then, the choice: proceed as usual, which is the direction they are moving in today, in which case there will continue to be slow decline and probably no more Republican Presidents, or cast aside anti-Latino bigotry but jettisoning their Teabilly base. Then, of course, I’d want them to abandon anti-gay hate as well. But that’s probably asking too much.

Most telling is the continuing reality-denial narrative at Fix News and by extension in the whole of the right-wing Whack-O-Sphere. The Republican Party as it exists today is finally, after thrashing about for a few years, at an end as a national force. It will now either wither and die to be replaced by some less crazy party, or it will adjust in the direction of reality.

Second, here at Slacktivist Fred Clark dissects the end of the Fundamentalist Right’s claim to moral superiority. There has never been a clearer referendum on its pro-bigot, anti-woman agenda than we had this past Tuesday, and the results are writ large: in every race that was remotely competitive, the Religious Right’s agenda lost, as did thier candidates. Even in red states.

The article’s key point, though, nicely underscores the Religious Right’s key failing: that its teachings on these issues are in fact not morally right but in fact deeply repugnant to a growing percentage — now the majority — of the American people.

And third: Democrats now have a supermajority in California. That’s quorum-defying control of both houses as well as the governorship. Republicans are effectively powerless in this scenario; no vote they can make can stop anything Democrats agree among themselves to do.

It is tempting to say “hey, the good guys won and that’s great,” but this situation is in fact incredibly dangerous. The disgrace that is the modern Republican Party has chased away almost everyone with any connection to reality, and in America’s largest state it has in so doing abdicated its responsibility to provide a “loyal opposition.” There is no sign that the party as currently constituted is going to budge at all, and the internal narrative indeed turned away from reality and into delusions of persecution.

This will not help. Just a few years ago Republicans were talking openly about one-party rule and a permanent majority. That’s… not going to work out how they’d planned.

Looking at White People Mourning Romney made me feel a bit bad for Romney supporters. But only for a moment. Okay, not really at all. It actually made me laugh. A lot.

My pity is nonexistent because, while I’m sure many of those people who earnestly thought they were voting for America’s salvation by voting for Romney, what they were really supporting, whether they realized it or not, was a venal, shameless and bigoted pack of criminal thugs who think nothing of spreading the most fatuous lies and rigging elections to their own benefit. They’re not doing this for personal gain, of course: they’re buying elections and selling out to monied interests for America’s own good.

The Republican Party likes to project its own criminality on its opponents; it’s not the Democrats but Republicans themselves who are far closer, ideologically and morally, to Stalinian Communists. It’s not Democrats who are engaged in voter fraud but Republicans who are busily suppressing votes. It’s not Democrats who are out to end welfare, it’s Republicans. It’s not Democrats who undermine American values, but Republicans.

Over the last four years they have become even more shameless, to the pont where there really is an entire conservative alternate information universe out there in which Republicans are immersed constantly, never having any notion challenged and where all understanding is handed down by one of the various Prophets. Really, it’s no wonder that the Mormon thrived in this environment; the Republican Party today is very much like a cult, living in utter denial of reality.

So yeah, I smile a little when I see the look of shock on Karl Rove’s face as he blinks, not really understanding, that Fox (Fox!) has just called Ohio, and thus the election, for Obama. I chuckle at the though of the Koch brothers’ confusion as the realization that they couldn’t buy an election even for $500 million sunk in. I grin broadly and laugh when I think of the couple in love that can now get married in Maryland or Washington, regardless of what some illiterate teabilly bigot in Alabama thinks.

That insurance companies won’t be able to deny coverage anymore to people with pre-existing conditions? That fundamentalist fanatics won’t be able to deny women contraception or rape victims abortions? That tax cuts for billionaires won’t be paid for out of school lunch funds? Those things will keep me warm at night.

This is the country, and the reality, that you’re in, Republicans. Either join the rest of us in the real world and in civilized society or go ahead and secede, already. Really, you can go; it’s okay; take the whole South if you want. A third world country on our borders will be somewhere we can ship the jobs that real Americans don’t want to do.

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Before taking a bullet, bin Laden apparently used a woman as a human shield. Fucking coward.

As usual, Al Jazeera has far better coverage than CNN or MSNBC. Fox News employs no actual journalists, so they don’t count.

George W. Bush issued a classy statement; apparently, Obama called him personally with the news. This reinforces my opinion of him: nice guy, too bad he was such a terrible President.

The despotic regime in Pakistan loses face, big time. They either had no idea bin Laden was holed up in a palace in an Islamabad suburb (very unlikely,) or they did know, and willfully concealed that fact from everybody. Either way it’s a black eye for a regime that the world would be better off without.

This has the potential to win the election for Obama; it removes a major axis for Republican criticism.

There is an article HERE that explains the causes for the current economic crisis.

Yeah, I know it’s from DailyKos, not exactly a nonpartisan website, and exactly the kind I am loathe to link to here. But the essence of the article is true, and being framed in a partisan way doesn’t change that. It illustrates a couple of things; it shows why the kind of unregulated capitalism as favored by ‘conservatives’ necessarily creates tremendous economic problems over time – as it did the last time the government was in the pocket of a wealthy elite, in the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th. The result, you’ll recall, was a little problem called the Great Depression.

It also shows us a small part of a larger truth; Reaganesque ‘trickle-down’ economics is bad for America, because it doesn’t work, and it’s been demonstrated to not work not once but several times. The current economic crisis is the result of 28 years of trickle-down economic policy, which Bill Clinton did not oppose but which was championed by conservatism.

Conservatism is a bankrupt ideology, economically and morally. Now it stands a chance to bankrupt America as well. But make no mistake; this is not solely the Republican Party’s fault, as much as the Republican Party has been the driving force behind it. Democrats who failed to oppose deregulation (which is most of them) are just as much to blame. They’ve allowed their own party to be pushed farther to the right across the board, but especially in economic matters, and to adopt conservative thinking in that arena because conservatives have been so very successful at popularizing them.

Most Democrats who buy into conservative economic ideology probably do so, it seems to me, for that very reason; because a propaganda industry has been relentlessly pushing it for decades. They bought it because they think it works. But it doesn’t, and when truth, fact and good sense are subordinate to ideology, this is the result: ordinary Americans and the middle class foot the bill to bail out multibillion-dollar companies who exist to make money for the already wealthy.